Just Like Heaven

Waiting for the fog to lift...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhR0Xk0b4xQ

Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism 29

Chapter Three – Purification

p. 137: “’God is the only reality,’ says Patmore, ‘and we are real only as far as we are in His order and He is in us.’”

Is this Keating’s “false self?”

p. 138: “To the true lover of the Absolute, Purgation no less than Illumination is a privilege, a dreadful joy.”

Hmm, I’m not feeling a sense of privilege or joy, although I get what is being said here.

16 Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ ¹⁷And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ ¹⁸He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; ¹⁹Honour your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ²⁰The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these;^* what do I still lack?’ ²¹Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money^* to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’  ²²When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism 28

"That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul.  That this view had set him perfectly loose from the world and kindled in him such a love for God that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since."  M. Beaufort, relating Brother Lawrence's mystical experience.

"...rapture or fluid splendor, and crystallize into a willed response to the Reality perceived..."  // "...from the emotional to the volitional stage."

Here is where I fall short.  I had such an experience, related in the walk around Lake Davis at the beginning of my Stephen Ministry training.  I have fallen short so many times in living the Reality I met there.  That is, perhaps, why Incarnation is such a key inspiration for me.  It is what I need to work on most.

28 ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” ²⁹He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father^* went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’

Honeysuckle Rose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l_rhHlndEI

Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism 27

What is this resistance to reading this book?  It is thick and intense, but feels so much like home on every page.  The thing is, I refuse to read it unless I have a solid block of time combined with centering time.  Today I made that happen while waiting for a Eucharistic visit call back.

p. 123: "...onset of this consciousness...so sudden...typical case...St. Paul...the sudden light..."  (like a pop artist who becomes an "overnight success," but has been working and practicing for years)

3: Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. 4: And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5: And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; 6: but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."      -----Acts 9:3-6 (NRSV)

Three marked characteristics:
1 sense of liberation and victory
2 conviction of nearness of God
3 sentiment of love toward God

EXAMPLES:

St. Francis of Assisi - Francis's "whole universe has suffered complete rearrangement"

Catherine of Genoa - unhappy with self and life "...received in her heart the wound of unmeasured Love of God"

Read this passage in Mysticism after hearing Tim Black's sermon today on the inevitability of change and the birth pangs we experience throughout life.

Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism 26

Dark Night of the Soul

"The human instinct for personal happiness must be killed."  Really?  Is our Declaration of Independence then counter to a mystic life?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." 

"Union: the true goal of the mystic quest...characterized by peaceful joy,..."

"In the mystics of the West, the highest forms of Divine Union impel the self to some sort of active, rather than of passive life: ..."

Matthew 10.39:

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 

"...a change whereby that self turns from the unreal world of sense in which it is normally immersed, first to apprehend, then to unite itself with Absolute Reality: finally, possessed by and wholly surrendered to this Transcendent Life, becomes a medium whereby the spiritual world is seen in a unique degree operating directly in the world of sense."

I have these impressions, deep within me as I read this book, but they are not amenable to articulate expression.  And I am so very far from being able to live this out.  My only consolation is understanding that these states of being are commendable and desirable and I hope for the beginnings of truly desiring them so that I can, in fact, begin to see how I might operate their truth in the world of sense.

Je n'oublierai jamais

Toujours, Mignonne.  Toujours.